Officials say a troubled and delayed Baltic high-speed rail project still set for completion by 2030
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania say they are committed to completing by the end of the decade a financially troubled and badly delayed high-speed rail project integrating the three Baltic countries with the continental European rail network
HELSINKI — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania said Saturday they are committed to completing by the end of the decade a financially troubled and badly delayed high-speed rail project integrating the three Baltic countries with the continental European rail network.
Set to link the Baltic capitals of Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius on a new track with passenger trains running at speeds of up to 250 kph (155 mph), the Rail Baltica project was launched in 2014 as a pan-Baltic joint venture with financing primarily provided by the European Union.
Vladimir Svet, the Estonian infrastructure minister, said Saturday after an earlier meeting with the Latvian and Lithuanian transport ministers that “it is still our goal to start passenger and freight train traffic on the entire Rail Baltica route from 2030.”
“However, we still have to keep an eye on the growth of costs and find ways to save money and build more efficiently,” he said in a statement.
While the initial 2010 plan saw the project’s total cost at around 3.5 billion euros ($3.9 billion), a June joint report by auditors from the three Baltic states showcased the venture’s ballooning costs and said the project may need up to 19 billion euros ($21 billion) more funding to be completed.
It is unclear how much the EU, which has identified Rail Baltica as one of the key European transport projects, is willing to inject money into the venture.
Construction of new rail track, running a total length of 870 kilometers (540 miles) from Tallinn, Estonia to
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